Pubdate: Wed, 22 Dec 2004
Source: Florida Today (Melbourne, FL)
Copyright: 2004 Florida Today
Contact:  http://www.flatoday.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/532
Author: Britt Kennerly, Florida Today
Note: Does not accept out of town LTEs on drug policy

GROUP TARGETS RENTALS

Titusville Apartment Task Force Intrigues Other Cities

For years, residents of DeLeon Village were more likely to see
Titusville police busting a drug dealer than joking with kids at a
Christmas party.

Now, thanks to a program being eyed with interest by officials in
other parts of the county, their lives are changing.

Titusville is the first local agency to create an apartment task force
teaming eight officers, each responsible for specific problem areas,
and the local apartment owners association. Since its start in June,
the effort has resulted in several warrants, arrests and trespassing
warnings.

Some residents of the problem-plagued areas feel a little more safe,
and even are starting to get involved in the task force's activities.

DeLeon Village resident Cecilia Williams said the program is "one of
the greatest things that could've happened here."

"Kids can see how community works, what it means," she said as
children chatted with task force officers about gifts at a holiday
party this week.

The Titusville effort -- a cousin to community policing and
neighborhood watches -- is the latest in local law officials' attempts
to creatively address crime and show residents options for being part
of that solution.

In Palm Bay, under new Chief Bill Berger's direction, neighborhood
police coordinators are in place as they were in the 1990s,
responsible for different parts of the city and for developing working
relationships in monthly meetings with apartment complex managers, Lt.
Dave Crispin said.

"They document everything carefully, try to look into records to see
if they get repeat calls from specific places, make sure we don't walk
away from the problem," Crispin said.

The department actively pursues ideas that successfully and legally
put community members together with officers to address concerns at
certain properties with longstanding problems, he said.

"Now that we're aware Titusville has what may be an innovative
program," Crispin said, "we will probably do everything we can to take
a look at what they're doing successfully, evaluate if it's something
we can do effectively here."

Improving relations

The Titusville task force has eight volunteer officers, each assigned
to a specific complex. They're backed up if needed by vice officers.

"One of the biggest problems we have is with tenants who move from one
apartment complex to the next; stay there, create a problem and move
on," said Senior Officer Alexia Ferran, who oversees the force. "A lot
of times it's drugs and what comes with that -- traffic, loitering,
loud music."

On a monthly basis, officers meet with members of the Titusville
Apartment Managers Association at the state attorney general's local
Neighborhood Initiative office. There, Assistant State Attorney Phil
Archer and longtime community advocate Terri Goodwin help develop
action plans that could include extra patrols by police or teaching
residents how to report drug deals or junked cars.

At one complex, all tenants received letters from the police
department letting them know about the task force's work.

"People who wouldn't want to get involved are coming forward with
information . . . one of the results was charges against someone we'd
been looking for for a long time," said Cmdr. Mel Williams, one of the
task force's creators. Though task force officers earn overtime pay if
extra hours are needed, "most can work the duties into their normal
tours of duty," Williams said. "We have not incurred a great deal of
overtime."

Each officer involved volunteered, "not necessarily as an assignment
but as a personal commitment," Ferran said.

Community approach

The Melbourne Police Department offers neighborhood watch programs,
with the input of officers, Cmdr. Ron Bell said.

"If issues arise, or residents come in and make us aware of a problem,
we'll assign that project to a community policing officer to deal
with, to help come up with a resolution," he said.

The issues they focus on range from loud music and loitering to more
serious problems, Bell said.

"In one of the complexes, we sat down with management to make sure
their rules and policies are spelled out clearly, so people understand
them," he said.

Whether the property in question involves apartment homes or a
single-family home development, crime can blossom in an area left to
fester with drug sales, trashed cars and constant loitering, he said.

Most law officials, Bell said, are aware of the "Broken Window Theory"
of neighborhood decline. It was described in 1982 by sociologists
James Q. Wilson and George Kelling, who related neighborhood decay
directly to increased crime.

"It takes management and the public to speak up as residents and do
something, to help deal with it," Bell said.

Stick to the facts

While Palm Bay doesn't have a specific group targeting apartments, it
does have a neighborhood policing unit and a history of trying to
clean up problem areas, said Crispin.

In the mid-1990s, a community policing effort brought together
neighborhood police coordinators and property managers, who looked at
common complaints and strategies for solving them, he said.

Those problems ranged from the "floaters" -- those people who move
from one complex to another and are evicted or asked to leave -- and
drug dealers who worked out of apartments to "deadbeats who trash
properties or don't pay," Crispin said.

Legal issues that cropped up, however, over providing information that
targeted specific individuals, so the department reduced its total
involvement to keep within constitutional guidelines.

Those concerns were addressed in Titusville, where Goodwin collects
information about evictions and non-renewals and shares that with all
apartment managers.

That's legal, Archer said, "as long as it stays specific and factual,
not making allegations," he said.

DeLeon Village manager Catherine Dejesus said"a lot has changed" in
the six months since the task force's formation.

Seeing the kids at the Christmas party with police is "a far cry" from
crime that has scarred the northside complex in the past, she said.

"We've gotten rid of some drug dealers," Dejesus said. "We want to
have a place where the kids feel welcome, where they're safe and where
they know we love them."
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MAP posted-by: Derek